Helpless. Part II

1 The puppet and puppeteer

A sequel to 'helpless', my first fanfic (which, coincidentally, I forgot was also the name of a season 3 episode, so, er, sorry to anyone who got the wrong idea.) This is slightly darker than it's prequel, I fear, so read on, and please give me feedback, because no one ever does.



Again, she woke up.

But this time was not like the last. No, this time it was like wading through a sea of glue, trying to surface when you weren't even sure which way was up. A rushing filled her ears, and she imagined that she would soon hear her heartbeat, thumping and loud, against her ribs.

But there was only silence.

Silence and that strange, wild rushing, as though she was being filled up like a beaker, filled up from the inside.

She cracked open one eye, and the motion felt strangely alien to her. It didn't feel like her eye, or maybe it didn't feel like it was her that was opening it. She was a puppet and puppeteer all in one, and she couldn't tell up from down.

The world outside her head was dim and grey. Something cold and soggy clogged her mouth and nostrils, and clung to her naked arms and legs. She realised that she was clothed in a simple summer dress - she remembered it as being the one which she had begged and begged her mother to buy her some years ago. Cried and screamed and stamped her feet until she had gotten her own way. The memory which had brought so much grief those years ago should have caused a shameful wave to flood her heart, after all, she remembered, her mother was dead now. But even this thought left her cold and inanimate, as though she were a hollow vessel, slowly filling with new life, new purpose. A purpose that was not yet clear.

For now she was just a shell. The puppet.

She pushed up weakly with one arm, letting the filth that imprisoned her slide slowly to one side. She plunged her whole body forward into it until she thought that she couldn't be swallowed up anymore, and at that moment she found herself above ground, inhaling the fresh air in ragged breaths. She looked down at herself. Bare feet, pale, pale legs. Someone had dressed her carelessly. The dress was too tight, and clung to her ripe figure like a second skin of cobwebs. She noticed that a dark stain had snaked its way down the left hand side of her body, and she traced it with her finger. It was dry and flaked away at her touch. She followed the line up and up to the hole at her throat which had nearly healed. It did not hurt and she did not flinch as she examined it. So this was the source of her new life. It was so tiny, so painless and ridiculous, this ailment that would leave others screaming and swimming in pools of their own blood; it was so. human.

She trod lightly across the dark field, occasionally bumping into upright slabs of stone that she could not identify. It was as if she was seeing everything with new eyes, but only new to her. Older than the ages, they had not seen a tombstone for centuries. Her new life force needed guidance; help to puppeteer this weak and deceased body that it now called home.

The mind was willing, and this made the flesh strong for now. But she needed something. Sustenance. The familiar thought of a cheeseburger and shake was a far cry from satisfying the hunger that now burned in her. This wasn't for food; it was for survival. But it was more than that too. It was for power.

An elderly woman knelt by her late husband's grave, no more than a hundred feet away. She spoke softly to her lost love, as though he could still hear, as though his ears had not decayed with the rest of him. Buffy, newly made, approached stealthily. Her bare feet made no sound. She was the predator, the starving animal. The lonely victim had no chance against her. One snap of thin, old bone and the woman was reunited with the one at whose grave she lay. A crumpled heap of sour flesh was all that was left.

Buffy stared down at her. This small woman looked suddenly so vulnerable, so wretched. Her neck was stretched out at an unnatural angle, and her mouth was frozen in a surprised 'o'. Her eyes were blank and glassy, and stared off into space, never moving. Buffy had once heard that in death, one looked so peaceful it was easy to mistake it for sleep. But this one wasn't sleeping. She had died in confusion and horror, undeserving and unknowing. Buffy crept closer until she knelt by the woman, eyeing her with a mixed sense of horror and bloodlust. What ever it was that was filling her had not yet taken over. There was still some kind of memory that told her that this was wrong.

But she continued to fill with her new life.

She smiled and drank.

*****

Some minutes later, after she had finished retching, she lay on the ground shaking.

Newly made, her body was still disgustingly human, and one which could not yet take a stomach-full of hot blood. She still shivered from a chill breeze that she did not feel.

Her form was stretched alongside the old woman's, and she stole the last warmth from the violated corpse. An unnoticed shadow formed and approached.

"Well, well," A low voice mocked from behind her. "Look who's back from the dead."

Buffy strained to recognise the voice. She knew it from somewhere. But all of this was alien to her, growing stranger and stranger as the demon engulfed her.

"I must say, you picked a good night for it," The voice continued. The air was balmy and soft, and only a slight wind betrayed the oncoming winter.

The voice's owner circled her like a bird of prey, slowly and deliberately. A cigarette butt landed close to her face, fizzled and died.

Buffy turned her head. "You're Spike," She said. She remembered now. She felt an immeasurable bond between the two of them - some sort of loyalty that she could not place.

"Its what they call me," He said lightly. "Of course, you can refer to me as Sire. Or, perhaps, Your Grace. I've always fancied that."

"So. I'm Buffy." She said, her voice wavering now. It was like a jigsaw puzzle. One that had been finished long ago, but recently shattered. It was up to her to rebuild it with her memories. It would look different but it would essentially be the same.

Spike stopped pacing and sat astride a hefty tombstone. "Yeah, uh, you may want to change that, you know," He said with a smirk. "Buffy the Vampire doesn't quite have that menacing ring that our kind revere." He pulled out a packet of Marlboros and lit up, tossing the empty packet away carelessly. "There again, Buffy the Vampire Slayer didn't exactly instil the living fear of God into our hearts."

Buffy raised herself onto her elbows. "You know, I had a hamster called Spike when I was eight," She said breezily. "The name wasn't so scary back then."

"Yeah, well, things change," Spike said huffily. He jumped down from where he sat and approached her. "For one thing, you're dead now. And your bloody hamster's dead. And so is everyone you know." He grabbed her wrist roughly and pulled her upright. "Some of us were just lucky enough to come back," He growled.

"What . are you doing?" Buffy cried, trying to break free. She was younger and weaker; a mere fledgling, but she had the pride of a warrior.

"Teaching you the first thing about being what you are." He wrenched her arm upwards and pressed her hand over her heart. "Feel it."

Buffy hesitated, and then listened. Felt. "There's nothing." She whispered.

"Exactly. Tell you, the first thing about becoming one of us, pet, is that that's all you are now. Not some poncey, high-and-mighty vampire slayer, but the very thing that you've devoted your life to slaying."

"How ironic," Buffy cut in dryly. "And I'm guessing there's some kind of point to this?"

"The point is, peaches," Spike said impatiently, "That it may look like Kansas and it may feel like Kansas, but it ain't Kansas."

And Buffy looked down at herself, her bloodstained hands, her porcelain skin and the old woman crumpled at her feet - all of it so familiar, yet so alien - and thought, 'No. Its really not.'

*****